Jax sat on the metal slab in the center of his sterile white room, spinning the nutrition gel packet in his fingers without tasting it. The silence was deeper now, as if even the machines watching him had grown bored.
No alarms. No power surges. No whispers of the thing that had once erupted from his chest like a storm.
Whatever that blast had been, it was gone now. Or buried so deep even he couldn't feel it anymore.
Good, he thought bitterly. Let it stay buried.
It hadn't saved his mother.
Hadn't stopped those bastards from killing him.
Hadn't done anything but land him in a high-tech prison dressed like a hospital.
The door hissed open.
Two white-suited attendants stepped in, flanking a third figure: a man in a charcoal uniform with a badge stitched to his chest, two blades crossed behind a rising sun. The insignia of the Praetorium Corps.
Jax tensed. "Great. More strangers telling me nothing."
The officer ignored the jab.
"You have been evaluated. Monitored. Scanned. The energy that discharged from you at the border couldn't be replicated. But the impact you left was undeniable."
Jax rolled his eyes. "I didn't ask to leave an impact."
The officer continued flatly. "You're unstable. But you're also alive. And potentially valuable."
Jax stood. "If you want to rip into my body under the guise of experimenting on me, just say it."
"No," the officer replied. "You're being recruited."
Jax blinked. "Recruited? Into what?"
"The Praetorium Corps."
Jax stared in disbelif for a moment then laughed, a dry, sharp sound. "Not a chance. I'm not joining your little monster hunting militia."
He knew of the Praetorium Corps and as far as he could tell, they were just people chosen to be fattened as fodder for the monsters that roamed the continent. There had only been one person from the Ashlands who had been recruited into it and he had died. No way he was going to let them do that to him.
"You don't have a choice."
"I'm not fighting for a system that eats fat while people like me have nothing, I'm not going to be used by a system that let my mother die."
The officer stepped forward, unblinking. "She died because you stole something powerful enough to threaten the balance of everything this city survives on. You should consider yourself lucky we're offering you a future at all, many would kill for this chance."
Jax's fists clenched. "Screw your offer."
There was a pause.
Then the officer turned to the attendants. "Tag him."
Before Jax could react, a sharp sting hit his neck, cold metal followed by a burst of electricity that short-circuited his entire body.
His knees gave out.
The white room spun, the ceiling turning to light.
Then darkness swallowed him.
When Jax opened his eyes again, he was moving.
Bright lights passed overhead, layered with images of codes and names projected on glass panels. Holograms flickered in the air above narrow corridors. Data logs, metrics, streams of combat footage and training profiles, it all buzzed like a hive around him.
The gurney came to a stop.
He tried to sit up but his body was sluggish from what they had injected him with. His head throbbed.
Two guards helped him stand.
He looked down and realized that he was wearing a dark uniform now. No shoes. No sleeves. Just a regulation jumpsuit stamped with a barcode on the chest.
He was in a data center, the first checkpoint for all Praetorium recruits.
A massive circular chamber stretched ahead, lined with observation booths and scanning pylons. Other recruits filled the space, all of them young like him. Jax guessed that the oldest person there had to be twenty years old at the most.
Jax scanned the crowd with foggy eyes.
He felt… smaller here.
Out of place.
Weak.
He opened his mouth to protest, to yell, to demand answers. Then he saw her.
Tall. Poised. Standing under the soft halo of a bioscanner.
Her hair was a cascade of obsidian waves braided along the sides with a blunt fringe that covered her forehead. Her face was pale gold, her eyes bright and clear, shaped like twin shards of amber. Her posture screamed discipline. Authority. Power.
The room seemed to blur around her.
Jax blinked, unsure why he'd stopped moving. He wasn't the type to freeze over a girl and after Liss, he certainly did not want to be aware of any woman. But this one, she looked like she didn't belong here either. Like she'd stepped out of a different world entirely.
She turned her head and locked eyes with him.
Her gaze was not curious. Or amused. Or even neutral.
It was disdain.
Sharp. Cold. Dismissive.
She looked at him the way one might look at a stray mutt sniffing at fine shoes.
Jax felt his chest tighten.
His cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment.
She looked away without a word.
He looked down, jaw tightening.
Of course, he thought. Someone like that wouldn't give a rat from the Warrens a second glance. And if she did, it would only be to stab him in the back later or to step on his back to get into her no doubt polished castle.
Just like Liss had.
He tore his eyes away.
Just in time to collide with a broad shoulder.
He stumbled back, catching his balance, but not before hitting a floor panel and dropping hard on his side.
Laughter exploded around him.
Several recruits nearby chuckled, a few pointing. One of them, the guy who had knocked into him, a tall recruit with blonde hair and chrome implants in his temples sneered.
"Careful, Warren Rat," he said, voice thick with amusement. "Gravity works harder on trash."
Jax glared up at him.
The guard behind him said nothing. They were probably under orders not to interfere unless blood spilled.
Jax pushed himself up slowly.
His palms stung. His uniform was scuffed.
But what burned most was the humiliation. It hurt to know that he could be easily singled out as someone who had come from the lowest of ranks, this guy was probably a top dweller who never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from. jax was sure that he had never even been forced to drink rust coloured water because there was nothing else.
He caught the girl watching again but there was no laughter. No smirk.
Just the same cold, unreadable expression.
He turned away from all of them and didn't look back.